homeschooler the January 2026 Utah Utah THE UUtahtah HOMESCHOOLER Volume 2, Issue 3 ·· January 2026 Executive Director Editor in Chief Supporting Editor Sales & Marketing Harold Godfrey Della Hilton Anna Owen Clara Warrick PUBLISHED BY The Homeschooler Magazine support@TheUtahHomeschooler.com MISSION STATEMENT To provide community, resources, and support for homeschooling parents, and to recognize and inspire excellence, creativity, and exploration in homeschooling students. CELEBRATING AND INSPIRING EXCELLENCE wanted : Families and teens to share their stories! Celebrate Inspire Support & Encourage Homeschoolers Across the State email: family@TheUtahHomeschooler.com From the From the Editor's Desk:Editor's Desk: A peek behind the scenes into how the magazine is made This is what the writing contest section almost looked like! Since the essays were all about the historical evolution of everyday objects, I created a timeline-in- spired theme, but decided it looked too much like the Student Spotlight section, so I redid it as the vintage newspaper layout you see in the magazine. Designing the cover for the January 2026 issue.This is where most of the magazine magic happens, although my desk is rarely this tidy! Cover Image by wavebreakmedia_micro on Freepik. Other stock images from Freepik and Vecteezy. Features Student Submissions Resource DirectoryEMBRACE IT! Navigating the Seasons of the Homeschool Year ne day in September, my sister (who also homeschools some of her kids) asked me how I was doing. I thought about how our homeschool year had begun. One day my husband was off work, so we went to borrow some geology kits made for teachers from the Utah Geological Survey office in Salt Lake City. Jim, who gave us a bunch of free rocks, elements, and compounds, was a great teacher to me. His knowledge of and love for geology filled me with fascination for a topic I’ve never known enough about. That “field trip” (which was also an errand to pick up free and borrowed learning supplies) was pretty great. We were rockin’ this homeschool thing! But by January or February, my family, like many, starts to feel like we’ve been trapped in a home-jail since the fall and begins to long for adventure in the springtime outdoors. We want to get out. If you feel the same way, don’t worry! This doesn’t mean you aren’t cut out for homeschooling! It means you’re normal, and your homeschool journey will turn out great if you just keep going. As a homeschool mom since January 2012, I like a “relaxed” homeschool style. Sometimes we look like unschoolers, sometimes we look like eclectic homeschoolers, and occasionally our homeschool has a more traditional O 4 | The Utah Homeschoolerlook. Overall, we’re where we like it and have learned to be comfortable in our unique way of doing things. We love our freedom! Contrary to how this article may have begun, I don’t have the energy to take my kids on field trips every week—or even every month. I don’t think it would provide a well-balanced education. Instead, we do an eclectic mix of many types of learning. Some days we do formal lessons where I teach. Other days we practice cooking or baking skills. Some days we have a great math day with lots of math learning. Some days we “talk politics,” just because we feel like it (and it’s also good for us). And some days, we’re unwell and learn mostly about what being sick feels like. Some days I focus more on prep work to get ready to teach great things, and that’s OK too. As a matter of fact, I felt like writing this entire article in one morning, so I did. It’s noon, and so far we’ve only done Early EMBRACE IT! Navigating the Seasons of the Homeschool Year Embrace It! Navigating the Seasons of the Homeschool Year | 5 by Lisa Christensen Jackson Left to right: A Little Free Library visit; a visit to a dinosaur museum; playing in the rain; a new arrival adds "spice" to life; our family in 2022 (photo by SammyG Photograph). Morning Seminary and breakfast. My kids seem content with the break. But when the January and February doldrums hit, even this begins to feel like too much. So let me share my secret to getting through it. You may be so disappointed with my answer you’ll want to fire me and tell me, “No thanks! Don’t write any more articles for homeschoolers!” But this is what has worked for me. Think of it like one of those herbal remedies your homeschool friend gives you for a cough or sore throat, only this is a remedy to help you not quit homeschooling when the mid-winter doldrums inevitably come each year. It may not solve things for the rest of the year (May can be rough too), but hopefully, this remedy will bring a spark of joy and happiness that can help carry you through these cold and dreary months. So here it is: Embrace it! Embrace this period of doldrums! They’re entirely normal (and I’m pretty sure they happen to public school classrooms as well). As a matter of fact, when you get to May and start feeling that urge to plan your next homeschool year, plan the January and February doldrums into your homeschool plan. Let it be a time of reading, educational videos, fun, and even laziness. And don’t worry! Your kids’ neural connections won’t shrivel up and die from lack of use. Instead embrace this season of the yearly homeschool cycle. Let it teach you what it needs to. Embrace boredom—inventions arise when boredom comes. I’m not advocating for an increase in time spent on devices, but I am suggesting that, beyond the chores and core academic items, let the rest “rest” on days when you’re just not feeling it. If you don’t feel up to doing your usual thing, then don’t do your usual thing. Learn about unschooling and lean into it during this season. If you don’t have a home library, get one! If you don’t have the space, find it! My kids read a lot during times like this. There are also plenty of movies and TV shows with amazing educational value—your kids can learn about historical time periods and wars, scientific discoveries, 6 | The Utah Homeschooler Left to right: A piano is a lovely thing; a day full of book-learning; a crate-stacking challenge; super cool ice in the neighborhood. or the lives of artists and composers. This type of learning is fun and easy but can still inspire and motivate your kids. This January, my oldest homeschooler will have to start studying for the SAT and ACT. He will not want to study, and knowing he must may fill him with dread or give him an anxiety stomach ache. However, the inspiring books and movies we watch as we embrace the doldrums will hopefully encourage him toward achievement and excellence. Sometimes during winter, we take a break entirely. On days with sufficient wet snow, my husband and kids go tubing or sledding. We shovel snow or build a snowman. We dream of springtime. These break days give us mental rest. The lying and sitting around will create boredom, which can motivate in a way you wouldn’t imagine possible. After a period of doing nothing, the kids and I always feel like we can do better. Suddenly, we start wanting to accomplish big things! Goals start to be written and planned. Motivation returns like the sudden meetup of a cold front and a warm front—with a great storm. It may come as anger or frustration, a trip to the dollar tree for much-needed snacks (something my eldest son often did), or as the painting of a bedroom light blue (which is what my kids did this past year for my daughter). Sure as the doldrums that preceded them, motivation is suddenly back. The craziest part is that the sooner you embrace the laziness, relaxation, and fun, the sooner the lightning bolt of energy and the heavy downpour of enthusiasm will come. And when May arrives and you start to feel you’ve had enough and are longing for summer break, embrace that too! Use that energy to plan for the upcoming August. Dream and hope. And let half of that enthusiasm help you finish out the current year with nobility and valor. I hope that you never feel guilty for being a normal homeschooling family and getting weighed down by the mid-winter doldrums. I pray that this remedy from a friendly homeschool neighbor (me!) helps carry you through. Have an enjoyable journey of happiness and joy! ♥ Embrace It! Navigating the Seasons of the Homeschool Year | 7When my oldest was five, my husband and I had a conversation about how we wanted to educate our kids. We had visited the schools in our area, and while there were things we liked about each, homeschool won out. Not only did it provide a student-to-teacher ratio you can’t get anywhere else, it aligned with our values as well. For many people, religious considerations play a big part in why they choose to homeschool, and as Christians, it was definitely an important part of our decision as well. Homeschooling gave us the opportunity to be the ones to shape our children’s character and to present a Biblical view of the world. We started homeschool when our oldest was in kindergarten, and it worked so well that we continued for all five of our kids. One of our early successes came from my husband encouraging me to stick with the homeschool curriculum we had picked. There are so many options now and it’s easy to get caught up wondering, Is this the BEST history book? Should I try something else? We decided that unless a child was having a problem or the curriculum wasn’t working, we should just stick with what we were doing. We had chosen a curriculum that clearly laid out what to do each day, which worked really well for me, because I had a lot of kids and didn’t have time for a lot of lesson planning. By sticking with it, I got better at teaching it each year. I learned how to do it well instead of constantly switching and having to reinvent everything. I knew where we were headed each time through. By the time I got to my fifth child, I felt like I had really mastered it. Picking curriculum and sticking with it was a huge key to our success. STEPPING STONES An Intentional Path From homeschool to public school by Krista Whitney 8 | The Utah HomeschoolerI also had to learn that, especially when some of our children were too young for school, I was still a mom first. The “teacher” and the “mom” were often at war during the day—the teacher in me wanted everything quiet and orderly, but there were always things that needed a mom’s attention. I had to remind myself: “Remember, you’re the mom. That’s who your kids see first when they look at you.” Being willing to be the mom first meant that sometimes the teacher had to take a back seat. Sometimes I had to roll with the day instead of pushing the educational agenda forward at all costs. Seeing myself the way the kids saw me—primarily as a mom—was important. I learned to value that relationship and to see school as a tool for accomplishing greater things God wanted to do in our lives, not as our highest goal. School had its place, but it wasn’t everything. Another difficult thing about homeschooling is that it is a lot of work, and you have to be okay with that. It demands so much of your time and effort. Especially in the early years, so much of a child’s education is character training—if you will take the time to build that character, then the academics get easier. As time went on, homeschooling our kids became more and more time-consuming. I had to let different activities and opportunities go and make changes to my daily life in order to yield to the time commitment that doing school well required. HEADING TO PUBLIC SCHOOL By the time my oldest was in seventh grade, all five of our children were doing homeschool—kindergarten through seventh grade. I was using a curriculum that required me to do all the teaching, and at that point, I felt like everyone was getting the short end of the stick. The younger ones needed so much time, but the older ones had rigorous academic needs that also required a lot of my time. My husband had been homeschooled as a child but had switched to public school in 8th grade, so we started talking about following the same pattern with our kids. By the time they each reached that preteen stage, my husband and I felt like we had built a great foundation of character, heart, and education, but we could see that they needed to be pushed in ways that we could no longer provide inside the home. They needed more opportunities to be responsible. Eventually, they would move out completely and become fully independent young men and women. Having our homeschooled kids enter public school in the 8th grade felt like a way to incrementally transition Top to bottom: Taking time for a selfie during school; first-day- of-school photo. I had to learn that school was a tool, not our highest goal. it had its place, but it wasn’t everything. Stepping Stones: An Intentional Path from Homeschool to Public School | 9Next >